The invention relates to a lifting-table guide having two oppositely arranged vertical guide elements at opposing sides of a mould lifting-table of a continuous casting plant, one guide element each of the oppositely arranged guide elements being supported by two rollers mounted one above the other in a stand of the lifting-table guide and the guide element oppositely arranged each being supported by a single counter bearing.
High demands are made on the guide for a lifting-table, since a slight change of position of the mould fastened to the lifting-table relative to the following strand guide will lead to difficulties during casting, due to the formation of cracks at the strand. When the oscillating movement of the mould is interrupted, the danger of a strand break-through exists, so that the plant will have to be stopped. For this reason, jamming of the lifting-table guide is to be reliably avoided.
With a lifting-table guide known from U.S. Pat. No. 3,612,156, the guide elements arranged in pairs on each side of the lifting table, are each laterally supported by means of four rollers mounted on a stationary supporting construction, two rollers each being arranged oppositely in pairs, so that the guide elements on one side of the lifting-table are supported by a lower and an upper pair of rollers. The position of the axes of these rollers is adjustable and fixable by means of an eccentric, for the purpose of adaptation to the guide elements and exact adjustment of the mould.
By this construction a very precise guiding of the lifting table and thus the mould is possible, since that guide has the advantage that two opposingly arranged guide rollers always contact the guide ledges with approximately equal Hertz pressure. There may however occur difficulties when adjusting the rollers. In particular, it is difficult for the operating personnel to adjust each of the two roller pairs to the guide elements with the same adjustment force.
By this it may happen that, for instance, the guide elements on one side of the lifting-table are guided between one pair of rollers by high pressure forces and between the other pair of rollers only by slight pressure forces, which will result in an uneven wear of the guide elements.
From German Offenlegungsschrift No. 2,008,080 a lifting-table guide of the initially-described kind is known in which one guide element each, of the oppositely arranged guide elements, is supported by two rollers arranged one above the other, and each guide element arranged oppositely therefrom is supported by a single roller, the single roller being at a height between the height of the two rollers arranged one above the other, so that a three-point support is reached. This known construction has the advantage that an approximately even wear of the guide elements is achieved, but it has the disadvantage that the rollers are strained by differing forces, since the two rollers arranged one above the other contact the corresponding guide element only with half of the force of the oppositely arranged guide roller, whereby the Hertz pressure occurring at the rollers is of different extents. This necessitates unequal dimensioning of the rollers.